Latino Daily News

El Chapo Uses Drug Money to Purchase 300 Companies

Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who was arrested last weekend, used drug proceeds to assemble a conglomerate of 288 firms across more than a dozen countries, Mexico’s El Universal daily said Friday.

Guzman’s holdings include hotels, mines, gas stations and an ostrich ranch, the newspaper said, citing data from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control.

The other leading figure in the cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, owns a dairy and “even a daycare in Sinaloa,” according to El Universal.

Working through associates in Panama, El Chapo acquired at least two companies in the legal drug business, the newspaper said.

Investigators also found financial connections between Guzman and people close to Rafael Caro Quintero, founder of the now-defunct Guadalajara drug cartel, who was released from prison last August after a judge threw out charges against him for the 1985 murders of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena and pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar.